Posted
by
samzenpuson Wednesday November 16, 2005 @02:34PM
from the know-it-all dept.

Hemos writes "Most of the books sent to Slashdot for review have words like
"Java", "hacks", or "802.11b" in the title, but occasionally an odd
general book arrives after a publicist hits the wrong button on the
keyboard. At first, I thought that John Hodgman's The Areas of
My Expertise , was a mistake, but now I'm not sure. Because
this is Slashdot, I'll spend the rest of the review wondering
whether the Internet is really changing jokes, humor in general,
and even all narrative form. But before that, I can tell you now
that there's something sly, odd, and very funny about the book even
though it is little more than a disconnected collection of lists
and details. It's a coredump from a mind filled with 700 names of
Hobos, the ways to use a ferret to rob a bank, the secret to
winning every fight (use henchmen!), and the first draft of T.R.
Roosevelt's famous command: speak softly and pierce their eyes with
a golden hook." Read on for Peter Wayner's review.

The Areas of My Expertise

author

John Hodgman

pages

230

publisher

rating

8

reviewer

Peter Wayner

ISBN

summary

Let me help the curiosity of the general reader before I get to the
meat of the review where I reveal enough Internet-releated theories
to satisfy the nasty trolls who like to wonder why Slashdot is
wasting valuable bits on silly topic. As John Hodgeman is fond of
promising on his book's cover: "THE ANSWER IS PROVIDED".

The book is said to be a relatively complete collection of all of
the important expertise in the mind of John Hodgeman, the author
referred to on the cover as "A PROFESSIONAL WRITER." There's one
section that contains the "700 Hobo names you
requested." ("Irontrousers the Strong", "Fleastick" are 55 and 79).
Another includes random crap about the 50 states. The sections are
all very silly and the humor emerges from a form of metaphysical
misdirection. I still chuckle when I think about the list of jokes
that "have never produced laughter." The jokes really aren't funny,
but there's something insane in their very deliberate and plodding
failure.

The book can be sampled like a box of chocolates. I tried to read
it through directly to see if any grand arc emerged, but my mind
couldn't extract any great signal from the cultural noise. For all
I know, he wrote each bit on an index card and then shuffled the
cards before typesetting the book. The gags are all about the
randomness of the wrong information cluttering his minds and, to a
large extent, the texture of the words.

Long ago, an editor would have thrown this guy out on his ear for
even suggesting that 230 some pages of chuckles would be worthy of
getting people together for a book publication party. I don't think
the editor or the publisher let those worries get in the way.

Which brings us to the answer I owe you about why this is a post-
internet book. As the non-funny "unified theory of the web" in
Small Pieces Loosely Joined pointed out, the web is made up by
many small pieces of information arranges with hyperlinks that join
them, loosely if you will. Well, that's this book. Random pieces of
crap, given an additional shuffle to make it seem all the more
random. It's all very loosely joined.

Long ago, professional writers like John Hodgman included narrative
arcs and well-wrought plotlines with their books. Perhaps we don't
need them any more. Maybe the Internet has changed our brain and
made us happy to graze from the bar without the need of a sitdown
meal. To put on my PROFESSIONAL POSTER hat, I think that the
Internet has made us accustomed to getting our stuff in loosely
joined pieces.

In fact it's worse than that. Most bloggers write complete
paragraphs, but many parts of the book are just a collection of
tiny bits that don't even qualify as full paragraphs. Many of the
entries are just lists and many of the items in these lists aren't
even complete sentences. This modern approach to writing is
everywhere. Even the old dead-tree-based print media is producing
magazines filled with so-called stories that are nothing more than
lists of cool things to do, watch, or eat. The high-toned magazines
may even have two or three sentences per list item--enough, I guess,
to qualify as a paragraph, but most are nothing more than lists.

Some folks seem to feel that this fragmented, attention-deficit-
whatever life is a good thing. Steven Johnson, for instance, argues
in his
book that the jumpy plots made of many short scenes are
evidence of an expanding intellect. Modern TV seems almost
unwatchable to me. But I also find old Starsky and Hutch episodes
to be terribly plodding. Won't they just get to the point and catch
the killers? But, back then, the journey was 9/10ths of the fun.
The point wasn't really the point.

But maybe I'm just making too much of it. Plenty of comedy has
always been filled with short pieces. Steve Martin's Cruel
Shoes , for instance, was broken into a number of very short
bits, although there really were a few threads woven throughout the
book. Absurdist comedy like Monty Python's Flying Circus was just a
collection of wacky riffs, but they did try to come up with clever
and even more absurdist segueways to carry the viewer from scene to
scene. It was not usual to have a bunch of guys walk into the frame
of a sketch and carry one or more of the characters off and into
the frame of another set.

At this point, I sort of feel that I need to add what PROFESSIONAL
WRITERS call a "kicker", some sort of question or twist that
connects us with the top of the piece and gives the reader a sense
of closure. They're hard to find and even harder to craft. Ones
that are even slightly funny or insightful can get you promoted.
But, given the spirit of the book, I feel inclined to invoke the
spirit of a hobo, slack a bit, and steal the ending from the book
itself. (I can do this without spoiling the book for you!) As
Hodgman writes when he comes to the end of the deck of joke cards,
"That is all."

One section of the book-- "Secrets of the Mall of America"-- was read by the author as part of the September 23 edition of the public radio show "This American Life". The show is in their online archives for this year [thisamericanlife.org]. Or you can go directly to the stream of the show. [thisamericanlife.org]. Hodgman's part begins around 45 minutes into the show.